A typical communications network or system is a collection of User Equipments (UE), links and network nodes which together enable communication between the user equipments. In the communications network, which also may be referred to as cellular network, the user equipments, communicate via a Radio Access Network (RAN) to one or more core networks (CN).
A user equipment is a mobile terminal by which a subscriber may access services offered by an operator's core network and services outside the operator's network to which the operator's RAN and CN provide access. User equipments are enabled to communicate wirelessly in the cellular network. The user equipments may be for example communication devices such as mobile telephones, cellular telephones, laptops with wireless capability, machine-to-machine devices, or embedded devices in other electronic equipment. The user equipments may be portable, pocket-storable, hand-held, computer-comprised, or vehicle-mounted mobile devices, enabled to communicate voice and/or data, via the radio access network, with another entity, such as another user equipment or a server.
The communications network covers a geographical area which is divided into cell areas. Each cell area is served by a base station, e.g. a Radio Base Station (RBS), which sometimes may be referred to as e.g. evolved Node B (eNB), eNodeB, NodeB, B node, or Base Transceiver Station (BTS), depending on the technology and terminology used. A cell is a geographical area where radio coverage is provided by the base station at a base station site. Each cell is identified by an identity within the local radio area, which is broadcast in the cell. The base stations communicate over the air interface operating on radio frequencies with the user equipments within range of the base stations
In some versions of the radio access network, several base stations are typically connected, e.g. by landlines or microwave, to a Radio Network Controller (RNC), as in 3rd Generation (3G), i.e. Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA). The radio network controller supervises and coordinates various activities of the plural base stations connected thereto. In 2nd Generation (2G), i.e. Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), the base stations are connected to a Base Station Controller (BSC). The network controllers are typically connected to one or more core networks.
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) is a term referring to technologies that allow both wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices of the same ability, for example computers, embedded processors, smart sensors, actuators and mobile devices may communicate with one another, take measurements and make decisions, often without human intervention. Machine Type Communication (MTC) may be seen as a form of data communication between entities that do not necessarily need human interaction. M2M traffic is, for example, used in applications such as electricity meters, home alarms, signaling from vehicles, such as e.g. cars, trucks etc.
There exists a clear industry consensus that mobile machine-to-machine communications will play an increasingly prominent role in carrier networks and Information Technology (IT) operations. It may be predicted that there will be 50 billion wirelessly connected devices by the year of 2020. These devices may be connected via GSM, High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and Long Term Evolution (LTE), and will be used for both machine-to-machine applications and connected consumer devices.
It is commonly believed that M2M communication will be applied in a long range of very different areas with completely different communication requirements and patterns. Some electricity meter applications may for example connect and communicate just a few bytes of data only once a month, whereas other applications such as video surveillance may be constantly connected and transfer Gigabyte of data every hour. Connecting M2M devices with such different communication patterns to the same infrastructure as is used for normal human-to-human (H2H) communication puts new challenges on the communication equipment. New 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) requirements related to M2M communication have been specified to try to address some of these challenges. A service optimized for machine type communications is different from a service optimized for H2H communications. Machine type communications is different from current mobile network communication services as it may involve:                different market scenarios,        data communications,        lower costs and effort,        a potentially very large number of communicating user equipments with,        for many applications, little traffic per user equipment.        
M2M devices, also referred to as MTC devices, that do not move, move infrequently, or move only within a certain region may be associated with a feature called “low mobility”. A requirement for low mobility may be that the network operator may be able to change the frequency of mobility management procedures or simplify mobility management per M2M device. Another requirement may be that the network operator may be able to define the frequency of location updates performed by the M2M device. M2M devices that are expected to send or receive data infrequently, i.e. with long period between two data transmission, may be associated with a feature called infrequent transmission. For the infrequent transmission, the network shall establish a resource only when transmission occurs.
One serious problem with connecting M2M devices with new communication patterns to the same infrastructure as is used for H2H communication is how the model for dimensioning of network nodes are currently designed. The state-of-the-art is that the dimension of a communication node is often based on the number of served user equipments and/or the number connections the node may handle. Another problem relating to connecting M2M devices with new communication patterns to the same infrastructure as is used for H2H communication is how the price model and licensing of network nodes are currently designed. The price of a communication node is may also be based on the number of served user equipments and/or the number connections the node may handle. This is also naturally related to the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) which is an important measure for operators.
When looking closer at what resources user equipments and connections consume in the network, it is found that they consume two types of resources, memory resources and processing resources. The network equipment may also be referred to as a communication node or network node. Memory resources in the network node are used to store certain parameters related to a user equipment that is registered in the node, i.e. the network, or related to a connection that is established in the node, i.e. in the network. Processing resources are needed when the state of user equipments or connections are changed, e.g. registering a user equipment in the network/node or deregistering a user equipment, establishing a new connection or removing it, changing the state of a connection from idle to connected, or vice versa, or changing the current location of a registered user equipment etc. Processing resources are also needed for some other purposes, e.g. regularly checking the reachability of a user equipment/terminal, or notifying the user equipment or network of certain events such as that someone wants to communicate with it.
When dimensioning the hardware for a communication/network node, in general the amount of required memory resources and processing resources need to be decided. This is usually done by trying to define a “typical user equipment”. This is accomplished by a “traffic model”, which defines e.g. how many registrations/deregistrations a typical user equipment does per day, how many times per hour it initiates communication, how much the typical user equipment moves between different cells and mobility areas etc. Through the traffic model, the balance between memory and processing resources will be known, and hence the hardware may be properly dimensioned. When the hardware is dimensioned the price may be set based on the number of user equipments and/or connections that the node may serve. When a traffic model is used as a base for node dimensioning and pricing/licensing, there will be a certain balanced relation between memory and processing resources.
A problem with connecting M2M devices to the same infrastructure as H2H user equipments is that there is no “typical user equipment” for M2M. They are expected to span over a wide range of different communication behaviors. Optimization for M2M that is being done in 3GPP has made this span even larger. Therefore it becomes very difficult to use “traffic models” as a base for hardware dimensioning and therefore also for price/license models. A more flexible approach for dimensioning of network nodes is therefore required.
Some M2M areas, often with “low activity” communication patterns, are also expected to be cost sensitive. It is therefore important that the price/license models are flexible enough, so that they don't prohibit such M2M communication to use the 3GPP infrastructures.
The growing use of Smart Phones has to some extent also put requirements on changed or more flexible traffic models, but with the expected growth of M2M devices the problem is growing critical.
In addition to memory and processing resources, the hardware of a communication node that handles payload, i.e. forwards IP packets, is also dimensioned based on its packet forwarding capacity measured in Packets Per Second (PPS), or simply its throughput capacity measured in Giga- or Terabit per second. In some embodiments, a communication node may also be priced based on its packet forwarding capacity measured in Packets Per Second (PPS), or simply its throughput capacity measured in Giga- or Terabit per second. However, since the hardware for payload handling is normally quite separate from the hardware resources described above, it may to a certain extent be dimensioned and priced separately.